Physician Heal Thyself Part 2

Article #2: Physician Heal Thyself – Part 2

“By their fruits ye shall know them” applies as much to “science” as to trees. What are the fruits of modern medical science? What may we expect from this “science” in the future? Do “medical” men really know how to prevent and “cure” disease? Can they really prolong life? Can they help us if we submit ourselves to them for periodic examinations, frequent inoculations, occasional operations, and treatments of many kinds?

If they possess the necessary knowledge and skill to improve, preserve, and restore our health, to prolong our lives and free us from suffering, should we not find evidence of this in the better health and longer life of physicians and the members of their families? If these do not show better health and longer life than that of the lay population, are we not justified in doubting their claim that they possess such knowledge and skill?

A reader sends us a clipping from the Long Island Star-Journal telling of the death of a Brooklyn physician who dropped dead in the home of a patient, where he had been called. The physician was only 41 years old. The patient was reported by his wife to be “recovering from his illness.”

The physician, Dr. Frank Donigan, died in the home of Joseph McBride, a Great Neck engineer, at 160 South Middle Neck Road.

Were this an isolated case, it might be considered as only a curiosity; but, the fact is that physicians frequently die young, even younger than this one did, and we have known of other cases where physicians have dropped dead while attending their patients. Such facts entitle us to demand, at least, freedom of choice in medical matters.

We cannot reasonably expect medical knowledge and medical methods to do more for us than they do for medical men themselves. Medical men should hesitate before advocating compulsion in the use of their wares when they chalk up such poor records where we have reason to expect their most thorough and conscientious use.